


Any Lighter

by t0talcha0s



Series: LSPM Universe [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dancing, F/F, F/M, Grinding, Mentions of Prostitution, Mentions of past drug/alcohol addiction, Mentions of past self harm, POV Roxy Lalonde, im not sure about the plot of this but Roxy and Dirk go dancing, the mentions are all very slight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:10:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4623141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're reluctant, he's reliving, you're alive, he's a memory in his own eyes. You suppose this is the least you can do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Lighter

**Author's Note:**

> you never meant to start a war, you were trying to get home / the guns are firing / and the bullets are sinking like lumps in your throat / but you can see the smoke is rising up in their eyes / you dare yourself to stand up straight and beg for the fight 
> 
> teeth in skin and nails in your palm / well, you've seen better days / the girl in town who gave you her heart now won't look your way / but if you close your eyes, do you feel any lighter at all? / you want to know how to keep on standing when you feel so small 
> 
> if you could push back time to relive yesterday / are you better off being no one, is that what you say? / but if there's no hope left for the boy who shoulders them all / when he shakes, does the city fall? / when you shake, do your friends all fall?   
> \- Any Lighter, Maeve Kelly

The flickering neon sign of Lily’s hurts your eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You wipe a little sweat off your forehead and smile blindingly at your girlfriend. She gives a laugh and pulls you into her, giving you a kiss. You kiss her back, and then again, and soon you're kissing her sweetly but intently as her car stands wasting gas. That is until Dirk clears his throat. 

"See you tomorrow Fef." You say, pressing one last, quick peck to her lips. Your legs are sore from work and the back of your calves are red from gripping the pole during your last show. You don't doubt that both you and Dirk are covered in glitter, it's a nasty thing to get off but it's a curse of the trade. You roll your shoulders as you go stand with him by the bus stop. He's on the wrong side of the street, you'll be heading north not south so it's obvious the two of you aren't going home just yet. 

"How sore are you?" He asks, eyebrow arching into the perfect curve you've seen him practice before. Something clicks into place in your head, you sigh.

"Not sore enough." You've no doubt your face has fallen just a tad, you just don't know if you want to deal with this tonight. 

"Great, you cool with clubbing?" You know it's times like these when he's missing. Misses the lack of consequences, misses Jake, or Rufioh, or Caliborn, misses acting invincible and not taking responsibility for what he does. Misses the cowardice and visceral pleasure. It's easy to say yes when he's this pitiful. But this is the easy part, indulging him, getting on a bus with a destination you know you'll regret, and he'll enjoy too much. The hard part will be talking the blunt out of his head before he gets it in his hand. The hard part will be pressing up against him and dancing like you're happy. The hard part will be ignoring how broken and pitiful he is and staving off the urge to fix this beautiful, terrible, shattered creature. 

The bus seats are cold on the parts of your thighs not protected by your skirt, Dirk's gazing out the window. His expression too big and too empty for the hot summer night he's viewing. It's almost static in its heat tonight, no humidity and all heat in the darkness of the sky above, Dirk put his arm around your shoulder, the contact making you tense up in surprise before you lean on him. He doesn't look at you. But he doesn't have to with the way his middle finger lightly traces familiar patters on your shoulder. You close your eyes as the glare of streetlights reflecting off passing cars. The ride is short and Dirk knows the bouncer, you suspect he's planned this for a while but you can't be mad at him as he forgoes the bar and pulls you by your wrist into the mass of people. 

Dirk's always enjoyed dancing, it's a physical expression of music and Dirk is nothing if not a man of music. His movements are practiced and languid and your field of work supplies him with plenty of practice, he looks good. You quickly pick up the rhythm and it takes a small amount of effort to deny the reflex to strip, work's become a habit. Dirk grabs your hand and you smile up at him as he spins you around as if you were ball dancing, but it's not nearly so innocent for too long as he finds himself gently pressed against your back. One hand grabs your hip to pull you closer and the other slings around your shoulder. You close your eyes tightly, to the point where the corners water, and continue your swaying. Even with your eyes closed you can feel his gaze on the back of your neck. 

It’s sad, so sad the way he looks at you. Even beneath pointed shades, even behind his stoicism, you know well the way he looks at you. It holds such melancholy, a heart breaking, world ending sadness in his gaze. Like he’s sorry, like he’s hungry, like he wishes for something he knows he can no longer have, no longer has the ability to contain. He’s no longer a child, his purity stripped from him when he first sucked someone off in a shady alley for fifty bucks when the two of you left the foster system. 

“That money fed us.” He always justifies when you bring it up. And here, this creature of flesh and bone, grinding against you without a care, to chase that high, he’s never been more pure. Here after work where he exposed himself to strangers so they could stuff money into his underwear and he could go home to you, here where ecstacy is taken next to you and the air is thick with smoke and sex and regret, here where his hips, his body, is flush against your back and gyrating in a way that, while appearing lighthearted, only comes across to you as sollumn. Here, here in this den of impurity he stands a saint, a maytr, and you’re sure now his eyes are shut behind his shades, head tilted up towards the sky, cold expression, always painfully cold with him, cold hands grounded on your hip and around your shoulder, clutching at your collarbone, he could be praying for all you know, and through it all he just looks sad. 

There are days you can’t bear to look him in the eyes, but today, no today you wrap your arm back around him to rest on the small of his back the other moving static across his skin, pulling his hand down to you and holding his hand to your chest, right over your heartbeat, fast, painfully alive, and you grind your hips back against him. Rough, rampant, begging. Begging for him, his soul, his life, his everything and he gives it all to you. He could never deny you what you ask, and you're consistently generous enough to give him what he request. 

The music is loud around you, resonating into your hollow being and reflecting back out in your movements. 

"Rox." Dirk says, barely loud enough to be heard around the music and a concerning level of honesty in his tone. You swallow the lump in your throat and force a smile through your terse frown. 

"Dirk." You say, all formality and little compassion as your hips roll to a particularly harsh beat drop. He pulls you closer rests his large nose in your vaguely-sweaty hairline and lets out a soft shuddering breath that ruffles the strands. 

"I'm sorry." It's quiet and sheepish and good he ought to be sorry. 

"You're not going to have anything to be sorry for." You say, gripping his hand tighter. He dragged you out with him and you'll drag him back out. But isn't that always how it goes. Your thumb traces a wrist of smooth scar tissue. You won't let him make those decisions tonight. They're not his to make anymore. 

"But I already have so much to be sorry for." It lingers in the air as your dancing slows until it's simply the two of you holding onto each other for dear life surrounded by young, immortal, dancing bodies. 

"Yes," you say, "you do." And you rock back against his stock-still body and leave it at that.

**Author's Note:**

> This entire series is grossly self indulgent tbh. 
> 
> Complain to me on tumblr at Barefootcosplayer


End file.
